Are the New York Times spreading a conspiracy theory?

The New York Times claim that Russian reporters working in Sweden have paid local youth in immigrant areas to attack the police, burn cars, etc. Then they report about "problems in Sweden". Alt-news site Nyheter Idag (also attacked by NYT) has sensationally gotten an interview with Thomas Mattsson, former editor in chief of Expressen (a major newspaper). Mattsson suspects that NYT may be spreading an urban legend. 

Both Expressen and Aftonbladet (another major newspaper) have been accused of exactly the same thing - paying local youth to start riots for publicity reasons. Now, the Swedish reporters who pay local hooligans have morphed into Russian ones! However, Mattsson also says that NYT are "in general" a very good source, etc, presumably to cover all his bases...

Unfortunately, the article is only available in Swedish.

Criticism of the New York Times